


do you believe it?

by thchateaus



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blow Jobs, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff, Former Friends With Benefits, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Protective Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington Has Bad Parents, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Suicidal Thoughts, Time Loop, its complicated, oh yeah and
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:29:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24174385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thchateaus/pseuds/thchateaus
Summary: Steve wakes to knocking.Looks to the analogue clock. 7:03. Fifty-seven minutes before his shift at Scoops is due to start, as opposed to his normal half an hour, thanks to Robin and her need to be at work early.(an au in which Steve relives the events of Starcourt every day whilst falling more in love with the man destined to die at the end of it.)
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington
Comments: 41
Kudos: 396





	do you believe it?

**Author's Note:**

> hello i am ignoring all of the typos and such because i Pretend I Do Not See. also its almost 4am
> 
> tw for multiple suicidal thoughts that steve expresses, for general anxiety and for blood and violence and for negligent parents. 
> 
> i have been working on this baby since january and no way was i expecting it to take on this length or take this long. thanks global pandemic!
> 
> anyway i hope that you're well and this provides even a semblance of escapism. stay safe!!

Steve wakes up to knocking. 

Looks to the analogue clock at his bedside. 7:03. Fifty-seven minutes before his shift at Scoops Ahoy is due to start, as opposed to his normal half an hour, thanks to Robin and her incessant need to be at work early _._

“Ten minutes,” He grunts, smacks his lips together, chapped and dry. He knows she can hear him; it's July and the windows are open, they’re always open because summer in Hawkins is suffocating _._ Just like everything else. The people, the pine branches that howl in the wind outside his window, the tunnels that vine under his feet.

“If you’re not down here in five, I’m actually going to _die_ ,” Robin calls, “I’m fucking sweating. You wanna be responsible for my heatstroke, you asshole?”

He stumbles to his closet, pulls out that stupid fucking uniform and throws it over his head. Peaks out of the window, “You can always jump in the pool.”

“ _Har har_!” She squints up at him and he can’t help but laugh, “Just hurry up? Please?”

He rolls his eyes as he’s pulling his socks on - up to his _knees._ It's humiliating. All for three bucks an hour that will get him nowhere but stuck in this shitty town for longer. Just for minimal approval from his dad. For the chance that maybe, just maybe, he’d go easier on him. Bring back the hush money for walking in on his dad and his assistant and not spilling to his mom.

His dad preferred to call it an allowance.

He can’t even complain that Robin’s here so early either, not when she’s been picking him up and dropping him off for every shift. She’s been a total godsend since the BMW got totalled. 

(A complete accident, by the way, and the result of black ice that’d had him crashing into a tree. It was nobody’s fault, there were no other cars on the road that night, but since he couldn’t prove it and he hadn’t gotten into college as his dad wanted, he refused to pay it off. 

Hence, Scoops.)

He gets a few puffs of hairspray in before Robin calls him again, hits the doorbell so often it stops working altogether and grants him a pocket of sweet, sweet silence. Sweat tingles hot at his scalp before he’s even down the stairs to meet her.

“Where’s your hat at, sailor boy?” is what Robin says to greet him when he pushes the door open. 

“The knee highs are enough. I draw the line at flattening my hair again.” He squints across at her as he locks up. She smiles, and he can’t help but mirror it. “Where’s _your_ hat?”

“Left it at home, obviously,” She says as they clamber into their respective sides of the car. She leans over, tugs on a strand of his hair that’s in his eyes. He’s grown it out for a little too long, he thinks it's inevitable. “Your hair looks like shit.”

“It wouldn’t if someone had given me _time_ ,” He narrows his eyes at her. “My everything looks like shit.”

“Poor baby,” She coos, pats his cheek, the metal of various rings a brief relief from the heat, before starting up the car. “You look fine. Bar the hair.”

It's only when he’s settled into the seat and Robin’s pulling out of the driveway that he notices the paper bags on the dashboard.

“Bagels?” He asks hopefully because he forgets to eat in the mornings. Doesn’t have time to. And Robin can occasionally be _nice_ and adhere to that.

“Bacon and egg for you, they were out of cheese,” She says around a yawn. “Sorry.”

“It's all good,” He smiles and settles back against the headrest as he takes a bite. It's good, always is from Benny’s, that’s why he’d been in business long before Steve was a kid. Apparently, his brother had taken up the place after he’d died and it was almost like it’d never happened. Everybody still crowded there after every game, win or lose.

He’d only gone once or twice, didn’t much enjoy Tommy’s taunts and Billy being front and centre and lapping up the attention like it's all that mattered for the last months of senior year. 

Didn’t take away the fact they made bagels _this_ good.

“‘Kay,” She grins back. “Radio?”

“Sure.”

Def Leppard’s _Hysteria_ blasts through the speakers and Steve snorts a laugh as Robin bursts into song. She’s a huge rock fan, probably more so than Billy, which surprised him a bunch back when they started working together. Now, looking at the black smudged around her eyes and chipped acid green on Robin’s nails, he kinda gets it. Joins in around a mouthful of dough, plays the air guitar to her vocals.

He looks away to watch the sunrise through the treeline when the song draws to a close and switches to something more melancholic, taps at his knee. Sounds like something Jonathan would call _real music,_ something that, if he closed his eyes long enough, he could imagine playing with waves lapping at his ankles _._ Maybe a diner in the big city. A pier at the beach.

Somewhere that wasn’t Hawkins.

It's already hot enough that the back of his neck is clammy by the time they get off of the main roads but the sun is _just_ low enough that he can still appreciate the beauty of it, of the forest bathed in gold. It'd almost be relaxing if he didn’t know monsters lurked in the heart of it.

“Oh,” Robin clicks her fingers in his face as the mall comes into view, “I meant to ask you if you’d mind covering my shift tomorrow? Pretty please?”

“With Jacobi?” He frowns, “Not that I _care,_ but why?”

Her ears tinge red, “May or may not have a date.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep,” She parks in her usual spot; just short of Scoops’ loading bay where they have a direct shortcut. They’re not meant to park here, some company policy thing, but if management has noticed, they haven’t said a thing. “I’ll cover for you next week or something, promise.”

“Fine, whatever, I’m holding you to that.” He clambers out, slams the door shut, “You gonna tell me who with?”

She holds it in until they’re at their lockers and throwing their bags in them, turns to Steve with a grin, “It may or may not be Heather. That I’m going on a date with, I mean.”

Steve’s brows draw together, “Holloway? When the hell did this happen?”

She tucks her hair behind her ear, a blatant tell, and casts a nervous look through the window that separates the back from the customers. She peeks out at the smatter of kids already outside and slams it shut.

“Yesterday, genius. She asked me out at the end of her shift when you were too busy ogling Billy Hargrove, of all people.”

“I wasn’t - whatever.” His cheeks turn pink. “But good for you, I guess. And, y’know, I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks,” She smiles back, pushes through the door and to the checkout. “You’re on cleaning duty today.”

He adjusts his collar. She makes a face at the hair peeking out of it. “Great.”

He gets through all of _three_ shelves before he recognises various voices and Robin calls for him.

He pushes open the window to meet the impossibly impatient faces of most of the party staring back at him.

And his day, shockingly, goes to shit after that.

Dustin bombards him with some Russian code that Robin spends a couple hours decoding before she cracks that it came from inside the mall. But Steve is the one who recognises the _Indiana Flyer_ , so.

They don’t go home that night.

Instead, the three of them sneak into the back of the imperial place’s loading bay and discover that it is, in fact, an _elevator to a Russian lab._

Everything becomes a bit of a blur, after that. 

He knows for a fact that they sneak in, that Dustin gets away. But when he wakes up in that holding cell, half-beaten to death and his eye about to pop out of his skull, he has no idea how.

He thinks he accidentally tells them where Dustin is when he’s high on whatever the hell they give him, that maybe he talks a little too much about Hawkins in general. Knows he must mention Billy if the way Robin gawks at him in the back of the delivery cart Dustin shoves them into is any indication. It's not like he can help _it_.

The mall is closing up when they get inside, storefronts dark and shuttered up. Dustin herds them into what he’s pretty sure is _Back to the Future_. Maybe. He can’t hear it over the ringing in his head.

Then he gets thirsty. They leave for the water fountain together. He makes the colossal mistake of looking up at the lights that reflect from the ceiling while Robin’s talking about the movie and he suddenly needs to retch. Robin crowds in after him.

He’s pretty sure he’s close to falling asleep staring at the neon behind Robin’s head, picking at the blood crusted on his lip, when she asks about Billy.

Dehydrated and tired, he reassures her whatever he said down there is nothing and she scoffs. Says it doesn’t sound like that at all. Then Dustin finds them before he can say a thing. Tells them the Russians followed them up because of _course_ they did.

Thing is, when they get out there, the mall is deserted save for the party and a very dishevelled Hopper, Joyce, Nancy and Jonathan. A crushed car and a handful of Russian guards lay at the edge of the food court. Right. Mind powers. A girl who floats things with her mind.

As Steve steps closer, he notes they’re all standing around El. That she has a hand over her mouth before she’s screaming in pain, pulling somethingout of a hole in her leg that’s _shrieking_ , and he’s about to throw up all over again.

Then he digests a lot of information in very little time.

It's Max who tells him that Billy is possessed by the mindflayer. That it attacked him in some warehouse, how it entrusted him to recruit an army of bodies to feed it. Make it stronger, bigger, big enough to destroy El and Hawkins altogether.

She tells him with tears in her eyes, eyes that stray to the gun in Nancy’s grip. He pleads with her once they’re outside and staring down the headlight of the Camaro not to use it. She promises it's just a precaution.

The clip’s emptied before Robin can slam a nearby car into the Camaro. Then, of course, the monster comes after them. Fucking obviously.

There’s no time to think about Billy between them clambering into the station wagon and Suzie saying the code.

He feels sick. Can’t help the spin on nausea, the bile sitting in his throat that makes his mouth water when they’re driving away. Just leaving him to burn. 

It's only when they’re back in the mall, lobbying fireworks at the mindflayer, that Billy reappears with El in his arms. He’s covered in black veins, consumed by something alien and inhuman, and all Steve can do is watch as he lays her at the monster’s feet like a sacrifice.

Then she’s holding a hand to Billy’s face and saying something. The veins retract. Billy stands up.

Billy faces the bastard and holds it back with his bare, human hands. And Steve? Steve thinks they might finally have a chance, here. That this thing will finally be defeated and everything will be peachy fucking keen. Because Billy is fighting back and Hop is about to close the gate and kill the thing before anything else can happen.

He’s always been told he’s too naive.

He watches as the first tentacle stabs Billy. The second, third, fourth. Watches blood spew from his mouth as he screams. As he falls back and his back snaps in two when his body hits the tiles. Steve’s racing down the stairs, was moving from the second he screamed, monster be damned. He watches Billy choke on his own blood as he pleads apologies. Wet tears track down Steve’s face as Billy’s stills.

Max throws herself over his dead body and Steve stumbles back, watches the monster collapse behind them, and his eyes roll back.

* * *

He wakes up to knocking.

Opens his eyes to plaid walls staring back at him.

_What the fuck._

It must’ve all been a dream, he thinks as he pushes sweaty hair from his face, heaves in breaths that squeeze at his lungs. A truly fucked up dream. It wasn’t uncommon, he _had_ been having more nightmares lately. But it felt so real.

“Gimme a second,” He rasps, head still fuzzy, and hears Robin complain to herself about how hot it is.

It could be a coincidence. Really, it _could_. She’s been picking him up every single day, for weeks now. Since summer and Scoops began. She always complains about the weather, claims it's better back in the town she grew up in as if she’s not from fucking Wisconsin.

But that’s not how things in Hawkins work. Absolutely nothing happens by sheer chance or coincidence. Especially when the Upside Down is involved.

He’s just pulled his uniform on and stumbled down the stairs when he hears a click and light footsteps. Robin steps into the hallway.

“You okay?” She frowns, “You sounded out of it. More than your regular spaced out.”

“Yeah, um,” Steve nods slowly, bleary-eyed, “I think… I think I had a nightmare. Bad one. I’m okay.”

She frowns, “Shit, you wanna call in sick? I brought-”

His chest seizes, “Bagels?”

She pulls the paper bag from her rucksack and shakes it with a smile, “Just bacon and egg. No cheese today.”

There’s bile in his throat.

He still decides to go into work. Just to be sure. Just to make that he’s not actually going insane.

He knows he watched Billy die last night. Watched him choke and bleed and watched as he stopped breathing. He got tortured, beaten. Drugged by Russian soldiers. When he licks his lips, they’re nothing but a little chapped from the heat.

They share their bagels in the car; Robin has her usual honey and strawberry and he steals hers, too. She doesn’t mind, argues he needs the energy boost. He doesn’t say anything back, he barely even feels real _._

“Radio?” Robin asks when they’re out of the driveway. Just as she had before.

“No,” He can’t fucking hear a single note of what he knows will be _Hysteria_. “No music.”

“Sure thing,” She gives him a weird look but shrugs it off, turns back to look outside. “Hey, uh. Rough timing and all, but I was wondering if you’d cover my shift tomorrow? Please?”

“I’m not covering your fucking shift so you can get laid, Robin,” He grits out, slams a hand to his forehead because it _aches_. Aches so much that every blink causes a prick of pain like his eye is about to pop out of his head. There are no bruises in sight.

“Alright, Jesus,” She frowns, and he feels like the worst person in the world, “I just really like her. No funny business. She asked me out when her shift ended yesterday. Which you’d know if you hadn’t spent all of it ogling Billy Hargrove.”

Billy.

Fuck. Of course.

Something must happen to him today to cause him to get possessed by that thing. Something that turns him into the shell of himself he was last night. Something Steve can prevent. _Has to._ What’s the alternative?

“I have to see him,” He says absentmindedly to the blur of trees outside the window. Is met with a bark of laughter.

Still chuckling, Robin narrows her eyes at his lack of response, “I’m sorry, _what_? You hate him.”

He doesn’t, hasn’t, not for a long time. Not since Billy apologised and knelt before him in the alley between the arcade and the auto mechanics'. Actually stopped hating him long before they’d started hooking up, honestly.

But because Steve was a coward, was _bullshit_ , he ran from it before it could progress into very much at all.

But, yeah. He doesn’t hate him, no matter how much of an asshole he is. Not by a mile. He couldn’t.

He blinks, “I don’t- I mean, he’s not as bad as you think. I just need to speak to him about something important. I just remembered. Is there any way you can cover me for, like, an hour?”

She looks at him like he'd grown another head, “I mean, sure, _I guess_. Why are you being so fucking weird?”

He doesn’t know how to answer without sounding like he’s actually, _finally,_ lost it, “Could you just drop me off without asking questions? I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

She sighs, lips pursed for a second. “Fine. But you’re definitely covering for me tomorrow.”

They get there in ten minutes. It's not like there’s substantial traffic in Hawkins to begin with. The majority of the population are rich enough to never worry about being on their way to a minimum wage job at eight in the morning. He used to be one of them.

Finding Billy doesn’t actually prove difficult at all. 

There’s a gaggle of housewives waiting poolside, grumbling about how Heather is still on shift. Which means Billy’s still getting ready. At least Mrs Wheeler looks ashamed when he squints her way as he passes her on the way to the showers. Her fucking kid is ten feet away in the pool.

He gives Heather a wave when he walks past her post and she winks back at him, pops her gum. Throws a strip down to him that he pockets, calls his thanks before walking into the showers.

He spots cherry-red shorts strewn over the wall of the third stall.

Steve isn’t really thinking when he rips open the curtain. He just has to know, has to be sure he’s here. He’s alive.

And he is, very much so. Steam curls off of the back that faces him, golden skin peppered with freckles rippling as water trails in rivets down his spine. Steve looks away, ignores how his heart pounds and clears his throat.

“Give a guy a fucking warning, asshole,” Billy growls at the intrusion, pulls his towel off of the shower pole to cover his very naked, very wet body. He pushes his hair out of his face, squints when he recognises Steve. “ _Harrington_?”

“Um,” He says helpfully, and Billy looks increasingly more peeved by his being there. “I gotta speak to you.”

Billy blinks slowly, hand paused where he’s tying the towel at his waist. Low. “It couldn’t wait?”

“Not really.”

“Well?” Billy raises a brow. “You’re here now. Out with it.”

“Right now?” Steve alludes as subtly as he can to the fact Billy’s hand is on a towel inches above his dick, that he’s still in a shower stall, that _Steve_ is.

Billy clicks his tongue against his teeth like he has all the time in the world, like this is amusing to him, “Yep.”

His cheeks tinge, “I just... I heard something bad happened to you. And I needed to make sure you’re okay. That you’re not gonna do anything dumb today.”

“I’m fine, captain. Are you?” Billy sucks his lip into his mouth, chuckling low. “Is that all you bust in here for? Just to check up on lil ol’ me?”

“Yes, you fucking asshole, I was worried - I don’t know why I bothered,” He frowns down at the floor because he can’t look at him, even now, his stomach flipping.

Billy studies him for a moment, makes Steve huff, his cheeks hot. He presses back against the cool tile as Billy steps out. “You shouldn’t believe any of the shit the hicks around here say. I’m fine.”

“It's not- it's not something I heard. I just…” He trails off because how does he explain? He doesn’t even _know_ what’s happening. Maybe he’s just going crazy. Maybe Hawkins has finally dragged him into insanity and it's all in his fucking head. “It's nothing.”

He watches as Billy unlocks his locker and pulls out his shorts, looks away when the towel drops. Feels hot under the collar. “You really okay?”

Steve wrings his hands together, “Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Just a bad dream or something, I guess. I really thought it was real.”

Billy steps forward when his shorts are pulled up, has Steve swallowing hard the second he touches his palm to his forehead. “Have they been bad again?”

“Not ‘til today,” Steve says, heart in his throat because he doesn’t get to have this. Wants nothing more than to hide in Billy’s chest and have the steady rise of it lull him to sleep like before. When he would scream himself awake and Billy would pull him close. Like they pretend never happened. “Thought I watched you die.”

“Jesus, Steve,” Billy mutters, hand stuttering over Steve’s temple before he pauses. Remembers himself. Drops his hand and his gaze to the floor. “You take care of yourself, okay?”

Steve breathes out. Aches to reach out. Squeezes his hands into fists instead. “Sorry for busting in on you like that.”

“It's fine,” Billy murmurs, a soft undercurrent to his voice that Steve can’t place, “Uh, I gotta get out there now or Heather’s gonna kill me, so.”

“Sure,” Steve says despite how much he wants to grab for him, to keep him here and safe and breathing. But he can’t.

“See you around?” Billy squints, second-guessing himself, before squeezing Steve’s arm. Leaves him there in the shower room with his heart pounding.

The last time Billy had touched him at all, it’d been in his pool, back in April.

It’d been months since Steve had last stepped near it, and Billy had known that. Pulled him in, still in the clothes he’d just changed into. Steve’s clothes. Billy had backed him up against the wall, steam curling between them because Billy had thought to heat it beforehand, and told him not to think about it. Kissed him. 

Just a kiss. Nothing more. It was the first and last time they’d kissed. Or at least like that. Without it being preemptive to them fucking. Like it actually _meant_ something. Like Billy did it just because he wanted to. Didn’t just want Steve inside him.

And it’d scared Steve. Terrified him. Because he liked it. Fuck, he’d loved it. But a boy who loves another in Hawkins is something unspoken at best. They couldn’t have that. Not in this town. He couldn’t give Billy what he wanted.

So he’d done what he was best at and ran away. Kicked Billy out, still in his clothes and wet head to toe. And he drove straight for the quarry, jumped in and stayed until he went numb with the chill. Frozen, shaking to his core.

When he’d gotten home, it was to his clothes folded on the counter, dry and still smelling vaguely of Billy. He’d clambered into them and slept on the couch.

They hadn’t spoken after that.

Steve waits a few more minutes before he pushes out of the shower room. Billy is talking to none other than Mrs Wheeler, much louder and more obnoxious than he had been to Steve. He doesn’t know what to do with that.

He hears him say something about Motel 6, catching Steve’s eye before turning back to Mrs Wheeler and he doesn’t know what it means _._ He doesn’t think when he leaves on the next bus for Starcourt, something hot and angry prickling in his gut. He doesn’t _get_ to be jealous. He doesn’t deserve it.

Dustin is in the backroom when he gets there, raving about the code on the Cerebro to Robin. Dustin lights up when he sees Steve, and Steve is choking back a lump when his face falls and asks Steve what’s wrong. 

He says he’s fine. Allergies or something. Robin doesn’t buy it, Dustin either, but they say nothing else about it and fill him in on the Russians. So he indulges them in their translating, no matter the inevitable, because he feels too sick to do anything else but let it happen.

They translate it in half the time it took them the first day. This time, they get down to the Russian base before nightfall. He makes sure.

When he’s lucid and they’ve escaped through the elevator, the night sky greets them. As does Eleven’s leg, the monster, and Billy’s blood on his hands.

His last thought before he passes out beside Billy’s body is that he took too fucking long _._

* * *

He wakes to the stench of blood as it drips from his nose. 

Beige plaid walls laugh at him.

_No._

This is _not_ happening.

He tightens his grip on the comforter and throws a glare in the general vicinity of his closet, stuffing tissue up his nostrils.

This was insanity.

He didn’t know what the hell he did to deserve this. Didn’t know what to _do._

Robin knocks again, makes his temples throb. So he gets up - it's not like he has a choice. Stumbles out of bed and down the stairs in his sleep shorts. He’s still trembling, Billy’s gargles still fresh in his mind, can barely get a grip on the doorknob. He can still feel the way Billy had clutched at his arms, black blood seeping down his skin. He knows without looking that they’re clean.

He has to stop Billy talking to Karen today. That has to be the catalyst to it. It fucking has to be.

Motel 6, he’d siad, loud enough for Steve to have heard at the opposite end of the pool. Looked him in the eye for a second. Almost like he wanted everyone around to hear. 

Like he wanted Steve to hear.

He didn’t know what that meant. But he knew that the motel was at the edge of town, just a couple roads down from Hopper’s cabin, and that's all he has.

“I’m not coming in today,” He says before Robin gets the chance to speak.

“Well, good morning to you too,” She laughs, “You sick?”

“Yep,” He nods, wipes crimson away with the back of his hand, “That a problem?”

“I mean, you _are_ leaving me to a morning shift alone but it's fine, I guess. You need anything before I go?”

He runs a hand through unkempt hair, “Don’t worry about it, just get going. I don’t want you to be late.”

She huffs a laugh, grabs and squeezes his hand before releasing it. “You’re strange as fuck, dingus. Get well soon, alright? Get some ice on that nose.”

“Sure thing,” Steve says, watches her walk off back to her car and pull out of the driveway. 

He goes straight to the refrigerator where numerous numbers are scribbled on a post-it. Hopper, Ms Byers, the Sinclairs’ and the Wheelers’, the station. Emergencies only. His mom had smiled upon seeing it when she was last home, had pinched his cheek and said how his sudden take on responsibility was _adorable._

He’s sure she didn’t know a single person on that list or their kids. Not even Hopper. She could never associate herself with a small-town cop lacking a degree from Washington State. Hawkins had never been a home for her like it had for Steve much of his life. It's her reminder of a husband that doesn’t love her, a son that doesn’t know her, and people she doesn’t care to know. 

Whatever.

He scales the list with his finger and dials the cabin.

Shovels in the freezer and folds a half-empty bag of broccoli at the bridge of his nose while he waits.

He knows for a fact that Hopper won’t be heading to work for another half an hour at least. Hell, he and El are probably having breakfast right now because she doesn’t appear at the mall until at least 10. Which leaves him with just big enough a window to have Hopper get him there before he did yesterday. Before Billy does. Before Ms Wheeler.

“Hey kid,” Hopper answers after a couple rings, audibly bites at something that crunches. Steve’s stomach rumbles. Hears El call hello in the background, “Don’t suppose you’re calling to tell me you’re happy to take my nine-to-five?”

“Sorry to disappoint,” He hears Hopper snort, “But, seriously, could I ask a really big favour? I need a lift someplace and, uh, Robin just left, and you know about my car situation..."

The exasperated sigh that cuts into the silence is all the confirmation he needs.

“Be there in ten.”

Hopper turns up pretty fast, doesn’t really pry and sticks to sending confused looks his way that Steve pretends not to notice. He hands Steve another ice pack before he gets out and waves him off.

He’s there before Billy should arrive. He only knows what time he gets there in the first place because Billy would complain about his shifts when they met up. It was his version of small talk, Steve figured, just as his was Scoops and Hawkins eating him alive. They always agreed about just how stifling the place was.

He’d always get to talking about how he should go. That he has an early one tomorrow. He’d stay over anyway. Settle back without much convincing at all and curl himself into Steve. It just happened, they just gravitated toward each other, and Steve would lose himself in that warmth. 

The Camaro is already there, parked neatly at the edge of the lot.

This time, when he walks past Karen, he knocks her coke all over her. He feigns his apologies, bats his lashes because he’s a _nice boy_. She stutters that it's fine, runs off with her gaggle of housewives to clean off in the women's’ bathroom. He hears Heather bark of laughter and he swallows his own. That should buy him a little time.

Billy’s in the third cubicle, just as he was last time, shampooing his hair. It's something sweet-smelling, maybe strawberry.

“Billy?” He warns before yanking the curtain open.

“What the fuck _,_ ” Billy grabs for the towel, gives a grumble. Then his face falls, washed over with a frown. “Steve? The hell happened to you?”

“Nothing,” He can’t breathe because Billy keeps dying on him, “Please don’t go anywhere with Mrs Wheeler today.”

“Alright, I’ll bite. Why the fuck not?” Billy ties the towel at his waist, squeezes water from his hair and turns the shower off at the wall. Steers Steve to the bench nearby. “Sit. You look like you’re about to keel over.”

“I’m fine,” Steve sits anyway, grips the wood hard enough that it bites into his palm. He squeezes harder still, heart thundering in the silence and the steam. “You go with her and you’re gonna get hurt. You can’t meet with her tonight. Please just go home.”

“Steve,” Billy says, a little quieter. It's the first time he’s called him by his first name in months. He likes the way it sounds, always gentler on his tongue than Nancy’s. Like there’s weight to it. Something to be said with care. “I’m not gonna meet her. You seriously think I would?”

“You winked at her when me and Robin were last here,” He’s grasping at straws, shrugs like it's no big deal, like it doesn’t make him burn hot with envy, “You were flirting.”

“I flirt with everyone,” Billy says, hand on Steve’s knee, thumb skating over the soft hairs of his thighs. Sighs when Steve doesn’t say a thing back, “I don’t like that bitch, alright? But there are plenty people out there who would be real fuckin’ happy to parrot back to my old man that I _do.”_

“I don’t understand what that has to do with-”

“J _esus_ , you’re lucky you’re so pretty,” Billy actually looks pained when he cuts him off, “I’m not interested in her. Not in any women, Steve. You of all people should get that, fucking Christ.”

“Oh,” Steve works his throat.

“Yeah, _oh._ ”

Billy pulls back and there’s something lurking in his eyes as he watches Steve. He doesn’t look away, actually, and Steve’s stomach tugs. Because that look, he remembers clear as day. That was how he’d looked at Steve after he’d kissed him, after Steve had forced him out. It was the same look he’d had as he died staring up at him.

It looks a lot like regret.

“Well, you know I like guys too and stuff. If you’re worried about me judging you, I won’t. I would never, you know. Obviously.” Steve tries a smile. Billy visibly relaxes, unclenches his jaw. 

“Thanks,” Billy knocks their shoulders together. Water drips onto Steve’s shirt and he grimaces. Billy grins as he stands, makes his way to his locker. “You know, I always assumed I was just, like, a phase for you. Testing the waters before you went grovelling back to that Wheeler bitch.”

“You weren’t,” Steve admits to the floor as the towel drops. Ignores the far off hurt at the mention of Nancy. Finds it harder to ignore the want turning in his stomach as Billy shuffles around to get his shorts on. “More like a confirmation, I guess."

“Yeah?” He doesn't need to look up to know Billy’s pleased by that. “Hey, Stevie, you sure you’re good?”

“Fine,” He isn’t but he has to be. This has to work and he’s already wasted too much time in here being indulgent and _selfish_ , “Sorry. I just. I really need you to promise me you won’t go. That you’ll go straight home. It's really important to me.”

Billy steps into frame and Steve spots the bright red of his ‘shorts first. He crouches in front of Steve, eyes wide and earnest in a way he’s seen only a couple times. His brows furrow. There’s a stray freckle right above his scar.

“Steve,” He dips his head, meets Steve’s eyes. Looks at him all pointed, like Steve’s not listening. “I was never going to.”

Steve nods, swallows around a tight, tight knot in his throat. And he’s exhausted, is the thing, feels like he hasn’t slept in a week. He hasn’t, not unless passing out next to a corpse and waking up in his bed right after counts. He’s pretty fucking sure it doesn’t.

So he heaves out a shaky breath and lets his forehead fall forward against Billy’s shoulder. Listens to him inhale. Squeezes his eyes shut and wills it all to stop. Just for a minute. To let him just exist, here with this boy, and savour every second.

“I’m just... I don’t think I can do this anymore,” He settles on whispering.

“Do what?” Billy’s hand cradles his nape, thumb stroking just behind his ear. Fevered blue eyes so wide, so bright. Full of something that breaks him just that little bit more. "What happened?"

“I wish I could tell you,” Tears spill free from his lashes, stick clammy and hot to his cheeks. 

“It's alright,” Billy says so softly, and it's _not_. None of this is alright and he can’t fucking do anything to change it. Then Billy’s pulling him back into his hold, encasing him in his arms, arms that steady him. He lets himself fall. Feels put together. “You don’t need to tell me shit.”

They rock there for a minute or two. It's the gentlest anyone has ever touched Steve and it makes him feel awfulbecause he doesn’t deserve it. Any of it. 

“Just breathe, Steve. Everything’s fine,” Billy says into his hair.

And, see, that’s the real kicker here, isn’t it? Because it isn’t. It can’t be, not while Billy keeps ending up a puppet to and dying at the hands of that fucking thing. And all Steve can do is hold out all the hope he has that something will give and stop putting him through this nightmare.

He clears his throat, “Can you just tell me one thing?”

Billy clears his throat, “Yeah.”

“Where are you gonna go tonight? If it isn’t to meet Mrs Wheeler?”

Billy’s hand in his hair loosens. He hears him breathe out before he lets out a loose, empty laugh. The kind he uses to cover something up. The kind he’d use whenever he’d turn up at Steve’s with a split brow and bust knuckles and blame it on a punching bag Steve knew didn’t exist as opposed to the party a block over.

“Today’s my last shift at the pool, just a couple more hours and I’m out. Going back to California. Or as far out as I can get.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Steve gets out, feels a lot like he’s taken a blow to the chest. Something all too familiar, yet foreign, poisons his chest. Sits dark and _cold,_ burying itself in his bones.

“Mm,” Billy pulls back a little, watching Steve with an unreadable expression. His warmth extinguished. He can hear Billy’s heart pound inches from his. “Think I’ve way overstayed my welcome.”

“Why?” He breathes, throat tight, makes a grab for his lanyard.

Billy’s nostrils flare and he lets go of Steve, eyes glassy. Maybe that’s thanks to the lights, maybe it's in Steve’s head. But he steps back all the same.

“You don’t get to do this,” Billy spits, eyes so bright, so full of hurt. “You dumped _me_ , remember? You don’t get to come to me and suddenly act like you need me again. Like you give a fuck about what I do. It's bullshit, Steve.”

“Dumped you?” Steve’s ribs are encasing tighter and tighter.

Billy’s tongue drags over chapped lips, watches as Steve’s gaze drops to watch by habit, and his laugh is an ugly, feral thing as he backs off.

“You know, you were the one who begged me to kiss you. Every time, Steve. Funny how that happened to slip your mind. And the one time I did, you ran me out and I never got so much as a fucking _sorry._ And now you’re- you’re here, acting like nothing-” He stops at the door, settles Steve with a look, “I have a shift I’m already late for.”

Steve can’t do anything but watch Billy leave. Knows that he’ll be dead soon.

He watches as Billy evades Heather, shoulders past Karen, and heads straight to his post. Steve leaves before he can find him watching him too.

When Steve gets to Scoops, Robin waves him over with the Russian dictionary in hand.

He’s rolling his jaw when they get up and out of the elevator again. It's fucking stifling down there, all cold steel and zero natural light. Dry air. He takes a lungful when they get outside. Can’t seem to catch a breath lately.

He’d stolen what must’ve been the drug they injected them with from Zharkov’s apron before they’d escaped. Knocked out the bastard before Dustin would come running to save them. It meant he’d saved an hour at least. He hopes that it's enough as they run for the parking lot.

Nancy’s already there, ordering the kids back inside the mall. Watches and makes sure they’re inside safe before he turns back to the headlights that flash at him too quickly to be a coincidence. They remind him of Will and his morse code. That pocket of humanity left in him still fighting on their side.

He doesn’t have to know shit about morse code to know that those lights are a warning.

He has to see him. Even if he knows how this ends.

Billy’s a mess when he gets to the Camaro.

He’s trembling, sick and bloodied and plain _wrong_ as he grips the steering wheel. Crying when bloodshot eyes flit to Steve.

“You don’t have to do this,” Steve says, barely audible over the roar of the engine. 

Billy says nothing, looks straight ahead and to the monster that’s clambering through the parking lot and straight to the mall.

“Billy,” He tries again, watches tears roll freely down his cheeks. There’s a scar on the right one. A single, black crescent. Reminds Steve of a moon, of all things. How fucking fitting.

Billy’s lip wobbles when Steve gets close enough to pull open the door to the Camaro.

“Just leave,” He gets out, finally meets Steve’s eyes. “I can’t control it, I don’t - don’t wanna hurt you.”

“It’s okay,” Steve whispers as he hears the monster making its way onto the roof. He’s never leaving him. Will always keep him safe, for every variation of this night that plays out, and after. If he would let him. He takes Billy’s hand from the wheel. Billy doesn’t fight it.

“It's not gonna stop, Steve, I can’t control it,” Billy says, looks up at him with wild eyes, matted curls falling in them. “I don’t know how.”

Steve looks back in time to see the monster breach the glass ceiling. Hears gunshots, glass shattering.

He turns back to Billy, doesn’t think at all when he leans down to kiss him.

Billy lets out a broken whine of a noise and kisses back instantly. Grips hair matted with tacky blood and licks into his mouth. Ignores the copper and bitterness brought with it.

Steve feels stripped raw as he clambers into the car and onto Billy’s lap, not once tearing his mouth away from Billy’s. Couldn’t even if he wanted to. He’s tethered.

Billy kisses like he’s trying to bury himself in it, in him, “Steve _,_ I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have- I tried to leave and I- you were right.”

“Don’t fucking say that,” Steve trembles, and he kisses the corner of Billy’s mouth. Billy’s hand burns at his hip. He speaks quieter against his jaw. “Don’t say sorry.”

Billy’s sniffling and pressing his mouth against his again, hoarse and broken. Steve kisses him, kisses harder, kisses as good as he fucking can as tears mingle between their lips. 

He feels the heat of the headlights before he hears the car barreling toward them.

“It's alright,” He rasps between them, tastes copper and salt on his tongue, and Billy’s crying freely now, too. “I’m gonna figure this out. Gonna fix it, gonna get you safe, I _swear_.”

Billy’s grip in his hair tightens and Steve leans their foreheads together. He can hear the screams from inside the car a few feet away. They definitely see Steve now, too.

“I’m sorry,” Billy grits out between wet heaves. Closing his eyes and ignoring the lurch in his chest, he leans down to kiss Billy again. Billy meets him there, grip in his hair and his hip like a vice, and Steve feels more alive, more purposeful than he has been in months. 

His last thought as death claims them both is that he knows for sure that he loves him.

* * *

When the knock at the door wakes him this time, when his nose drips with blood and his body aches with bruises that don’t belong to him, a sob wracks through him.

He did everything right. He warned Billy, he saved time. He brought him back. And _none_ of it mattered. Not one bit. Not warning Billy, not escaping early. The day still ended with Billy dead.

His death is an inevitability that Steve doesn’t want to bear witness to.

So.

So he sends Robin away. And he stays home. Can’t stomach anything else. 

He stays home and he breaks into his dad’s liquor cabinet and he drinks whatever shit he finds ‘til his insides seize on vastness. Until he’s heaving onto pristine marble. And he _cries_ , curled up against the basin with nobody to hear. Cries harder than he did each time he raced down to that mall floor to watch as Billy fought for his last breaths.

Staggers up, bow-legged, and takes up the whiskey from the vanity for another mouthful. Finds another bottle. And repeat.

Wonders, idly, if this could actually kill him. Stop it all. Or if he’d just wake up the next day, absolutely fine. Body aching with scars that he knows are Billy’s.

Worth a try.

He doesn’t really remember much.

When he wakes, it's to Robin calling his name from downstairs. It's to pounding temples and trembling limbs, to nausea deep in his core. To retching soon as he’s standing up.

At least he knows now that doing nothing means it's reset every day. Whatever this actually is.

Today, the pain is worse. Right in the centre of his torso where he _knows_ there isn’t a single, physical mark. He presses his hand down where it hurts, just a little, and his cry has Robin thundering up the stairs. Trying to find an injury that isn’t there. He knows she must think he’s fucking insane.

He isn’t really sure how to tell her he knows it's the exact place Billy’s last puncture wound was. The finishing blow that kills him. Reassures that it's nothing, just the result of drinking too much, and she leaves for work soon enough. 

He spends what probably results in weeks alone. He spends them drinking the cabinet dry. Testing his limits. Watching bruises actually, finally, appear and blot his torso. He drives as far out of Hawkins in his father’s car as he can before he, inevitably, ends up back in his bed waiting for that fucking knock.

He makes his way to Tommy’s one time because Tommy’s living on old money from parents that love him enough that Steve’s confident he’s never gonna be stuck working for three bucks an hour in _July_. Which is fine because it means he knows Tommy will be home, bored out of his mind, and happy to drive him out of town. 

And he’s right. Tommy barely questions Steve turning up at his doorstep after more than a year. And they drive out to Indianapolis with IDs that Tommy’s had stashed away since Junior Year. They don’t talk, thank god, and they’re there by midday.

Steve ditches him the second they get to Indianapolis. He knows Tommy will eventually leave for Hawkins alone. He doesn’t _care_. Just wants to forget Billy’s sobs and his lips and how good they felt. How they stained black and pleaded to him each and every single time that Steve has watched him die. How he could still hear his spine break in every slammed door, the Mind Flyer in every flash of light. 

Fuck, he wished he could go back to the start of the senior year before he went and got attached to the guy. Fell in love with him. He wished he could go back to hating Billy, to being so full of resentment for the guy that he couldn’t care less if he died.

Hell, he’d even take the rows of teeth and flower-petal faces over this. At least he could do something with that. He could put the bat to use, actually help someone. Not watch the guy he’s in love with choke on blood.

He lets some guy with blonde curls get his mouth on him in the bathroom. The guy doesn’t mess around, pushes him against the wall and drops to his knees. It's too quick, it's too wrong. Still, he shuts his eyes and grips golden hair, pushes. 

He comes with a gasp of Billy’s name. When he opens his eyes, it's to brown eyes. A stranger’s face twisted in confusion.

It only fills him with guilt, so much so that his skin is crawling, and he pushes the guy back. Ignores how he’s screaming all kinds of shit at him, zipper still undone, and he clambers out with his stomach turning. He stumbles out into the fresh air of the back alley, eyes stinging, and doesn’t make it down the street before he’s passing out.

When he wakes up to knocks the next day with his nose dripping, he rushes down to hug Robin. She doesn’t question why he clutches at her, just invites herself inside and makes them food. Gets peas on his nose and strokes through his hair. They go to Scoops a couple hours late and she doesn’t bring it up. Like it never happened.

Billy’s already bled out when they make their way out of the base this time. 

* * *

The next day, his nose doesn’t stop bleeding. He spends an hour with tissue up it and Robin getting it out of his uniform. It doesn’t slip his mind that they’re getting worse, that the bruises are too. He’s not sure if this loop has a timeframe, a point before it's too late for him _and_ Billy, but he’s sure he’s approaching it.

He goes to work as normal when it finally stems. Doesn’t say a thing out of place, eats his bagel, eats Robin’s too. They’re stone cold.

He sneaks out when they’re about to break into the elevator. Feigns needing the toilet and heads for the last bus out to Hawkins. He knows what will happen. But he has to see him. 

He gets off at the pool just as Billy is locking up. 

“Harrington?” He calls, hands over his eyes shielding him from the evening sun. It paints him in gold, has that pendant shimmering atop his shirt. “That you?”

“Uh,” He walks over, dodges a reversing car that Billy snorts at, “Yeah. Got off my shift early.”

Billy raises a brow, leans back against the Camaro. “So you decided to come by the pool, right as it shut? Alone?”

Steve bites at his cheek, feels them warm. “Guess I did.”

“Right,” Billy’s lips lift up on one side, amused. “You still remember the days I close up?”

He blinks. “Uh, no.”

“Such a bad liar,” Billy bites at his cheek though his smile prevails as he steps forward toward Steve. “I can open back up for you. Everyone’s gone.”

He’s not sure why he says it. He shouldn’t even be here.

“Sure,” He nods, watches Billy’s lips widen in a grin as he pulls the key from his shorts.

“Attaboy,” Billy walks ahead without looking back, knows Steve will follow behind, and something in his stomach flips at that. “Shit day?”

Steve blinks at him, “Huh?”

Billy seamlessly unlocks the gate, stands to the side to let Steve through.

It's perfectly serene, the only noise being the generator by the showers. The lack of people makes the pool look a lot nicer than normal. It's almost pretty.

He steps forward to stand at the edge of the pool. He’s not sure why it doesn’t freak him out: maybe knowing Billy’s here, that he wouldn’t let anything happen. 

“Just wondering why you’re here,” Billy says. Straight to the point.

“I don’t know.”

Billy lets go of the gate with trembling fingers. Doesn’t say a thing.

“Maybe I’ve been thinking,” Steve turns away, can’t look him in the eye.

“About what?” Billy’s voice is hoarse, he could hear as he steps closer. Doesn’t stop until he’s close enough he can hear how hard Billy’s heart is pounding. Knows his own suffers the same fate.

“You,” He swallows, “That I miss you. Miss being with you.”

“Don’t do this, Steve,” Billy says, low, carefully neutral. 

Steve turns his head to see Billy’s gaze lower to his mouth and back again, nostrils flaring. It's enough to make Steve jolt. 

“I wanted to kiss you,” He whispers, like a secret, braves a touch to Billy’s cheek. Billy presses into it, lashes fluttering, “That day. Every fucking day, actually. Wanted to every single day after. Every time I saw you.”

Billy’s eyes are glassy, “Why didn’t you?”

“I was a coward, scared of going after what I want. Scared of what people would say,” He admits, stomach swooping. “What my dad would say.”

Billy’s teeth dig into his lip again, hard enough that cherry pink turns white, “What about now?”

“I just want you,” He says, ghosts his lips over Billy’s, the perfect chance for escape. Or an opening. Billy’s choice. 

Billy grunts, loops his arm around Steve’s waist and slots their lips together.

Steve shakes at the contact, kisses back like he’s starved for it, like he can’t get enough. Skirts shaking fingers across Billy’s jaw and the fine hairs there, tilts his head up for better access.

Billy whines into his mouth, Steve’s shirt in his fists. He’s tense, coiled up like a spring.

“I can’t,” Billy pulls back, presses their foreheads together for a second before stepping back. “Steve, I can’t let you just- You don’t speak to me for months and now you want me? Just like that?”

Steve reaches out, watches Billy take another step back. “I- I fucked up, Billy. I fucked up. I know. C’mon, of course I want you.”

Billy watches him for a second, his face pinched before he looks out to his car in the lot. “Wanting me and wanting to fuck me are two very different things, pretty boy. Which is it?”

He swallows, “Billy-”

“Which. You wanna be my guy, you wanna hold my hand and all that girly shit? Or you miss my mouth on you?”

Steve felt his blood heat, his cheeks redden. “Can you just- _stop_ , for a second. Let me talk. Why are you being so...”

Billy stares, “Last time I kissed you, you couldn’t get rid of me fast enough and never spoke to me again. You know how that shit made me feel? Now, you come to me, stick your tongue down my throat and you can’t even fucking tell me what you want. So what is it? Because I got someplace to be.”

California, Steve remembers with a lurch in his chest. Or, what he thinks will be California and not a rusted warehouse and bodies at his feet.

His heart's hammering in his throat, “I don’t - I don’t know what I want. But you were never a phase or anything. I care about you. I should’ve apologised. Kissed you back before I ruined everything. ”

Billy exhales a shaky breath, “I - What the fuck do you want me to _say_ , Steve?”

“I just -”

_Want you safe. Want you alive._

“I don’t know.”

“Right,” Billy’s jaw sets and he nods. “Lock up after yourself.”

“Please don’t leave me,” He pleads, feels impossibly small where he’s stood alone at the pool edge.

Billy’s close enough that he can see him wipe at the tears tracking his face before he leaves.

* * *

There has to be something he’s been missing.

Something he’s been fucking up. Maybe it's not so simple as stopping Billy from leaving or limiting the time he spends at Starcourt.

He’s gotta try again. Mix up the variables, maybe. Maybe it's not about the amount of time he takes but what he _does_ at Starcourt. Or the pool.

He ignores Robin’s knocking initially, as he has been lately, but it's inevitable that she’ll come in and he’ll have to send her away anyway. And that just wastes time he needs.

So, he gets up.

He opens the door and he gets his fucking bagel and listens to Def Leppard and agrees to take that shift that won’t ever come. He lets the kids in to see their movie and gives Erica her a dozen samples. He listens to Dustin and he translates with Robin and they head down in the elevator again.

Except, this time, he takes the gun from the unconscious soldier.

And when the alarm sounds and the soldier comes for them, he puts a bullet in his head. Throws up. Steers Robin and Dustin to a cart and makes it back to the elevator. 

It should still be the end of the first day. Nobody should be here.

And they’re _not._

They’re shot up by Russian guards before they can make it out of the parking lot.

It takes a while for him to stop crying after waking up from that one. Robin doesn’t ask why he pushes into her arms when he opens the door. Why he’s hiding hot tears in her shoulder. 

The next day, he tries to avoid Dustin altogether at Starcourt. Erica finds him instead, carts him back to Scoops.

He gets beaten. Billy gets possessed. Billy dies in his arms. Rinse and repeat.

So he tries everything else he can think of.

He drags Nancy and Jonathan with them to the base. Takes Tommy the next, just to see what would happen. He goes back to the pool on another few.

It all ends the same way. Billy on those tiles and his blood like tar, filling every inch of his vest. Looking up at Steve until he can’t anymore. He always wakes up alone, gasping the name of a corpse. 

He warns Billy one morning before he sneaks into the base alone.

He has no idea why. There’s no way it will work, he knows that, but he tries anyway. 

Billy follows after him, he must do. As Steve is dragged into the holding cell, barely conscious, he kills the soldier. Staggers down the hallway, veins black and face clammy, and sticks the bastard’s own knife in his jugular. Smashes the doctor’s face into the wall without hesitation. With a strength he shouldn’t possess.

Steve doesn’t get a chance to ask - ask _why -_ before there’s the blare of an alarm. Gunfire.

And the blood is pouring out of his mouth this time when it's always been Billy’s, and he feels like he should be the one pleading for forgiveness at the breach of death.

Billy crawls to him, veins blue and his eyes bloodshot as he sobs, collects Steve in his arms. Brings their foreheads together. 

He’s palming Steve’s cheeks, streaking them crimson, thumbing away his tears. Billy’s bleeding from his throat. It's like rivets, mingling with the tar of dried blood, he’s choking on it, “It's okay, it's okay-”

Steve hates this one. He fucking hates it more than the rest.

His death is a relief.

* * *

“Why’d you wanna go back to California?” Steve, the sun setting behind Billy and he’s golden, everything’s _golden_. 

He’s gotten selfish. Sought out Billy at the pool the past couple days, drawn to him like a dying man to a flame. It may as well be true. His warmth, that golden face, were the only things keeping him afloat lately. He’d think himself mad if it wasn’t for this, these pockets of tranquillity. Just them and the pool.

Billy stretches beside him, knocks their feet together under the water and gets Steve’s rolled up pant leg wet. He watches Steve with enquiring eyes, studies him. He doesn’t want to answer, thinks Steve is fucking with him.

“How’d you know that?”

“There’s a jar of shells in your room,” Steve crosses their ankles, feels a little like a kid, like they’re sharing secrets under covers, “Plus you told me once. Remember?”

He didn’t. Billy knows that, too, Steve can tell by the way his eyes drop to the water. He still answers anyway, uncharacteristically quiet. 

“Cali’s the closest thing to home I have,” He digs his nails into the concrete. His fingertips are chalked with white. Steve’s own twitch an inch from his. He clarifies, “The closest thing I can have.”

“What if it’s not?” Steve asks, because it's getting dark and Billy’s signing a death sentence when he leaves and he’s so tired _._ Wants Billy to at least know he’s loved. How much he means to him. Every day, every time he finds him, he has to know. 

Billy keeps staring at the water. “Is this place home, for you? Cow shit and all?”

He laughs, can’t help himself, and Billy barks a laugh too. “It doesn’t- doesn’t _always_ smell of shit.”

Billy’s head lolls lazily onto his shoulder to face him. His grin has slipped, replaced by a slight smile. A private one. He prefers this one above all else. Meant for the morning light, something as golden as him. “Not an answer, Steve.”

“I-” He doesn’t _know_. Knows plenty of people in this place are important to him. “I’ve never left. I have people here now, y’know? I’d feel like shit if I left them. I’ve always thought I’d just settle down, work for my dad, have a family or something. I don’t know.”

“ _Really?_ ” Billy shakes his head in a laugh, blows out a breath, “You shouldn’t stay outta guilt. You’re not fucking meant to rot here like the rest of these sad sacks, Steve. Your future’s not picket fences and a bitch that don’t love you much as she loves her chardonnay. You gotta get out or it's gonna swallow you up.”

“You think so?” Billy looks at him like he’s dense, like he’s not getting it.

“ _Know_ it.”

He turns to face Billy properly, shifts enough their legs are pressed together, “Okay, and what if California doesn’t work out for you?”

“Then at least I fucking tried. And I move on,” Billy puts his hand atop Steve’s, squeezes. “You deserve to give yourself that chance, too.”

Steve lays his head on Billy’s shoulder, listens for the way his breath hitches, and nuzzles into the span of skin where his neck meets his shoulder. Watches the weak ripple of waves in the last stretch of the sun’s rays. He can’t help but imagine what an actual ocean would feel like soaking into his skin instead, what it’d smell like. That vast expanse of water, nothing stilted and chemical about it. That’s where Billy belongs, he knows, not rotting in Hawkins’ cemetery.

“So do you,” He says against Billy’s collarbone, a lump in his throat. Wants so badly that those scars that don’t exist _ache_. Is this what the poets talk about? This yearning for something you could never have, reduced to dreams that wane with every blink? He thinks it's fucking bullshit.

Billy deserves a future out of this place just as much as he does. Even more so. That kind of light shouldn’t be snubbed out in a town as rotten as this.

Billy doesn’t say anything but he settles his head on top of Steve’s. Presses his mouth to his hair.

When Billy gurgles on his own blood a day later, Steve thinks of those waves. Of Billy in them.

* * *

There’s one thing he hasn’t tried yet. 

He hasn’t told Billy what’s going on, not properly. Hasn’t said a thing about these fucking loops to anyone.

He promised Billy that he’d fix this, that he’d save him. He’d go through as many fucking days of this as he has to until Billy’s in the clear. Even if that means he doesn’t get to be with him. He just wants him to be safe.

So. Steve calls Hopper as soon as he wakes up. Doesn’t even acknowledge the knocks and clambers straight for the house phone. He warns him that the Russians have opened a gate at the mall and exactly how to find it. Hopes to god that El will validate the story for him. Get the fucking gate shut before the mindflayer can even think about getting close to Billy. To anyone.

As soon as he’s hung up, he clambers into the _'64_ Chevy collecting dust in the garage, waiting around for an owner that’s never home, and heads for the pool. It's funny, he thinks as he watches the metre hover over full, that this car has been in the house as long as he has. Just like him, it’d been forgotten. Replaced by newer models out in the city and left to become desolate like the rest of this fucking house.

He gets to a slope just down the road to the pool, leaves the car running and watches it roll down the hill and into the forest. He leaves before it totals out. It's not like he needs it, and his dad certainly fucking doesn’t. Listening to the engine blow in the distance as he walks through the pool gates, he can’t help but smile. 

He doesn’t acknowledge a thing at the pool, all background noise until he’s at the showers.

Billy’s at his locker, morning sun streaming over his face as he towels his hair. And Steve’s lulled forward even if he’s terrified, like a moth to a flame, and he gathers Billy in his arms.

Billy makes a noise, brings his arms up to hold him too.

He nuzzles into the crook of his shoulder, hears Billy’s heart pound. It's strong and mirrors Steve’s where it's about to jump through his ribcage.

Billy’s hand comes up to his hair and blunt nails scratch over his scalp. Steve sighs, rests his face in his shoulder, lets his eyes slip shut. Just for a second.

“Hey?” Billy stutters a laugh, head leant back against the lockers so he can look at him. “What happened?”

“I’ll tell you. I will. I just gotta..”

He trails off, gaze dipping to Billy’s mouth without meaning to. He supposes it's a question without a word being spoken, and Billy answers for him when he presses their lips together. Steve groans, grips at his shoulders and kisses him properly like he’s wanted to all this time like it's the only thing that matters. Maybe it is. Maybe it's just this, this forever, that’s all he needs. 

Billy groans, high and drawn out, grips Steve’s belt loop and tugs him closer. Opens up for Steve, draws him in, and Steve is floating.

It's different compared to the time in the car, copper on his tongue. It's different from that time at the pool, too. It's so simple, Billy kissing him so slow and assured like they have all the time in the world and Steve can’t get enough. Needs to bury himself in it.

He knows now: what he’ll do to get this, to keep it. However many times he has to live through this bullshit, he knows that Billy’s worth it. Worth everything a million times over.

He slides his tongue into Billy’s mouth like he’s been wanting to for months, his hand into golden hair that’s already curling, and swallows Billy’s sigh. He’s dizzy with it, his love for him. It feels like coming home. 

He wants with every part of him, every aching bone and every squeeze of his heart as it rabbits away for him. Wants to bare his fucking _soul_ for the taking.

“What’s wrong?” Billy asks as he pulls back, a rumble of his chest, and lifts his face by the chin. His cheeks are flushed and his gaze is so attentive where it follows Steve’s every move, his lips wet with their spit as he smiles. It makes his veins dance.

“Nothing,” Steve exhales, a lump in his throat, doesn’t realise he’d been crying. “I’m just in love with you. Have been for a while, I think.”

Billy chokes on a little laugh of disbelief, brilliant blue eyes shining. “You _think_?”

“Know. I know I love you, Christ,” Steve clarifies. “But that’s- that’s not why I’m here. I mean, it _is_ , and I need you to know I want you. This. Wanna be with you, however you’ll have me. Wherever you go. But, there’s- something else. I need to tell you first.”

Billy’s brows draw together but he nods, so patient. “Okay. So, tell me.”

“Alright,” Steve scoffs, a note of frustration curdling in his stomach, “You’re gonna think I’m insane.”

“I trust you,” Billy frowns like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

“Uh, okay, I’ll just. There’s a lot to this. Like, a _lot_ , and I promise I’ll explain properly later if you want. I will. But we don’t have much time,” He lets out a bated breath. Billy waits. 

“I’ve been reliving the same day on a loop for, like, a month. Maybe more, I don’t fucking _know_ at this point. But you get attacked when you leave the pool today, every time, you get attacked and it turns you into a monster and it kills you at the mall before I can even- I have to watch you die. Over and over no matter what I do. And- and I wake up and I have to go through it all again. I don’t know how to save you. I don’t _know_.”

Billy crowds into his space again and pulls him into another hug. He’s trembling with it, Steve can feel it, his arms shaking where they wrap around Steve’s torso.

“Jesus, Steve,” Billy whispers. Strokes through Steve’s hair at his nape again, and he used to do the same in the back of the Camaro, and Steve heaves a sob. One born of relief, maybe exhaustion. “You’ve been dealing with this alone?”

“I’m sorry for putting this on you. I get it if you don’t believe me. I wouldn’t - _fuck_ , I sound like a nutjob _._ ”

“You kinda do,” Billy smiles against his hair, voice muffled. “But I still believe you. I saw those drawings. That bat at the end of your bed you never fucking moved. That _thing_ in the fridge? I believe you, Stevie, ‘course I do. How couldn’t I?”

Steve curls into his warmth and never wants to leave. He doesn’t realise he’s truly crying now until Billy makes a sad, little noise, his lips at his temple.

“I don’t want to lose you anymore,” Steve admits, quiet and a little ashamed, “I can’t.”

“You won’t,” Billy rasps determinedly, won't look away from him, “You really love me, Stevie?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Steve nods, knocks their noses together before kissing him. Kisses him until Billy melts into it, needs him to understand, “I do. I really fucking do. I’m- I’m done running from this, Bill. I promise.”

Billy’s watching him with this look on his face like he’s waiting for the punchline. Like he doesn’t quite believe him.

Steve slides his arms around his neck. Gets his hands in the damp curls again, and Billy’s eyes flutter shut. 

“Don’t you get it,” He whispers, tugs at his hair and angles Billy’s face so their breaths mingle. He presses his lips to the corner of his mouth, a mouth that falls open for him. He scrapes his teeth over Billy’s bottom lip and his breath hitches in a sigh, his hands flexing at Steve’s hips, “You’re it for me. Have been for months. Can’t believe it took this bullshit and this long to make me realise but you _are._ I’m not letting you go for anything. Okay?”

"Okay," Billy exhales sharply through his nostrils. His hands at Steve’s hips tighten and he’s pulling Steve flush to him, pulling their bodies together. His thumb is like a branding as it digs into Steve’s flesh, “Fuck, you’re all I think about, you know? Haven’t stopped thinking about you since I got to this hick town.”

“Yeah?” Steve’s stomach flips and he thinks being in Billy’s circuit is sending him dizzy, always has.

Billy licks over his lips before smiling, more gently than Steve expects, “You know I had a crush on you since that shitty party.”

That surprises Steve. “You did?”

“Mm,” Billy hums, presses his mouth to his jaw, lazy. “Thought you were the prettiest fucking thing. Couldn’t handle it, so, y’know. Royally fucked that whole thing up, didn’t I?”

“Pretty sure we’re even on that front now, so- _Jesus_ -” Steve hilts, tips his head back when Billy’s starts to press lazy kisses to the moles that span his throat. 

“Yeah?” Billy smiles against his skin, presses a close-mouthed kiss to it before pulling back. “Tell you what, let me buy you breakfast. You can tell me everything there, if you want, but only when you’ve eaten.”

“I gotta deal with this. Make sure everything goes okay because I can’t- I need to keep you safe.”

“You don’t need to do anything, I’m right here,” Billy rasps against the shell of his ear, sends tremors through Steve, “C’mon. When’s the last time you had something to eat on one of these loops of yours, huh? Had a moment of peace? Let me do this for you, Stevie.”

“Okay,” Steve breathes out a chuckle borne of nerves, “Am I- do you want me in the Camaro?”

Billy’s lips upturn and he barks a sudden laugh, looks to him with bright eyes. 

“What?”

“Nothing, it's just. I remember the last time you asked me that. Ended a little differently.”

Heat floods Steve’s cheeks, “Shut up.”

“Sorry,” Billy laughs again, “Enzos?”

Steve thinks of the alternative, Benny’s place full of people from Hawkins High. Not the best place to take the guy you professed undying love for to talk about interdimensional monsters and how time had gone full circle. 

Can’t nod quicker.

* * *

Billy forks at the remaining cube of his waffle, syrup oozing out onto the plate and mixing with chocolate sauce that’s lukewarm at best before shoving it all into his mouth. Licks his lips. Steve wonders, briefly, how he eats like that and looks. _Like that._

“So this thing controlled that dog in the freezer?” Steve nods, thinks of black veins climbing Billy’s face, “And the Byers kid last year? And- and then me today?”

“Every time,” Steve confirms, a little shaky, “Every single time, it was you. And I tried everything. I begged you not to- I begged you to stay. To go home. I tried everything. It all ended the same.”

“I would’ve listened to you. Do anything you said, I know I would. I just don’t get it.”

“What don’t you get?”

Billy frowns down at his plate, “I don’t get why you’re the one reliving this shit, and not me. Think about it. If this is some… some ultimate fucking life lesson, or whatever the hell is going on here, what’s the point of putting you through it? I’m the one who should’ve been trying to stop that thing, I’m the one who was hurting people, not you. It should be me trying to stop it.”

Steve blinks, shuffles closer in the booth. The restaurant is empty anyway save for the worker in the back. She’d only let them in because Steve had handed her a fifty and reminded her who paid for the place to be built.

“Maybe it's not just about that. I can’t help but think, like. I don’t think it's about me stopping that thing. You’re the catalyst, it always resets when you die. It's about you.”

He swears Billy reddens, “The hell does that mean then?”

“I have no idea,” Steve admits, cheeks flaming, “I just know today is the first in weeks that I haven’t felt like my whole fucking body is on fire from the second I wake up and it's the only day I’ve, y’know. Told you everything.”

Billy settles his chin in his hand, “So, what, this is all some elaborate thing where you get to save my damsel ass and carry me into the sun?”

Steve’s smile is a fragile one, “It took me losing you all those times to realise what a coward I’ve been. All that lost time, and it got this close to being thrown away. I’m- I’m almost _thankful_ that this is happening. Because I get this... this chance that I don’t fucking deserve but I’m glad I got.”

“Hey. You were scared, Steve, you don’t need to keep beating yourself up over it. You don’t think I’m terrified of what this town thinks?”

“No,” He shakes his head, “I was _so_ selfish when I kicked you out. All I cared about was what people would say if they- if my dad knew, he’d kick me out. Make sure nobody in this shithole would hire me, that’s for sure. The only thing I cared about was what he thought. But watching you die all those times, I just don’t _care_. About him, this fucking town. None of it matters anymore. How could it? How can any of this superficial bullshit compare?”

Billy exhales, eyes skirting outside the window and to an empty street before he takes Steve’s hand, squeezes it in his own.

“Y’know, I had this. This stupid fucking pipe dream. That once I was there, I could drop you a letter outta the blue or something when I got my shit together. Just my address, a backdrop of Santa Monica, or something dumb like that. That maybe you’d wanna come find me, be with me somewhere better if I begged hard enough, maybe, I don’t know. It’s fucking stupid.”

_Is this place home, for you?_

“I would’ve if you asked.”

Billy goes quiet for a second, absolved in thought, eyes tracking nothing. Steve dips a fry in his syrup. It's sickly-sweet. 

“It was just a pipe dream.”

“You know, I hate this place. I’ve always hated it here, even before monsters started crawling out the ground and all. I fucking hate being stuck here. I’d- Billy, when I said I love you, I meant that shit. Like, I’m not saying I’m willing to drop my life and run away right this second. Obviously. But I’d like to, uh, that sounds nice. If you really wanted that.”

Billy’s gripping his hand so hard that it's on the verge of hurting, his eyes wide. “Of course I fucking want that, how could I not?”

“Okay,” Steve bites at his cheek, eyes catching on a couple crossing the street, the guy’s hand in her back pocket.

“Okay,” Billy repeats with a smile, thumbing his wrist, “How do you know this will work? That everything won’t just loop again and this is all for nothing?”

“I don’t,” Steve answers honestly, “But I have to try. I don’t- I just have to hope because I don’t know what I’ll do if this doesn’t work. But I know I’m not giving up on you, so.”

The flush of Billy’s cheeks catches in the restaurant light, eclipses his freckles, “Alright, what’s next? What happens now?”

“What do you mean?”

“What normally happens at this time in your, um. Your loop?”

“Right now, I’d be spying on a secret Russian loading bay doubling as an elevator. Trying to sneak in with Dustin and Robin.”

“ _Secret Russian_ -” Billy cuts himself off with a groan, rubs at the slit in his brown with his free hand, “Jesus, okay. So you warned the Sheriff today before you came for me? And he knows how to deal with this shit firsthand, right?”

“Yeah, I called first thing. He knows people.”

“Right. So, best-case scenario, he’s called his guys and they’re on the way to deal with the bastards under the mall. And the monster shouldn’t be a problem, right? I know I don’t feel any different.”

“Yeah, best case. Robin and Dustin are probably still trying to sneak down there. And the other kids will be there.”

“Okay,” Billy visibly tenses at that, “Then we’re going.”

Something curls in Steve’s gut. Billy voluntarily going to the mall made him just as uneasy as him going as a meat puppet. Steve grips his hand, “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

Billy chews on his lip for a second, “I’m not leaving Max there to get caught in anything. You wanna just leave them to deal with it on the chance that everything will wrap up perfectly fine and dandy?”

“No way, but -”

“Good, so we’re agreed that we’re going,” Billy pulls out a twenty, leaves it in the centre of the table as he stands, “Come on. But we’re picking this conversation up later.”

 _Later_. Steve doesn’t respond. Can’t think about it without feeling nausea climbing his throat.

He swallows, thinks of Russians with tasers and rows of empty cages the size of flower-petaled monsters. “Can we make a stop first?”

* * *

El is waiting at the mall entrance for them.

The parking lot is empty, save for a couple cars, one that he definitely recognises as Hopper’s and the other Joyce’s. 

She steps forward from the pillar when she sees them getting out, bounds down to the Camaro. The stern concern on her face doesn’t surprise him, but her reaching out to hug him certainly does. 

He lowers the bat and pats her back. 

“I saw everything,” She says by way of explanation, taps her fingertip to her temple with a little smile at Billy’s frown. She turns to him, grabs his hand in her tiny one and squeezes. “Thank you. Both of you.”

“What-”

“Remember, she can read minds. Read yours before you-”

“ _Shit_ , oh yeah,” Billy nods, smiles resolutely down at El, “I just found out everything, too. My brain’s kinda blown to hell right now.”

Steve snorts, can’t help himself, and El grins back.

“Jim is waiting for the doctor to arrive with his men. Joyce is with everyone at the ice cream store. He made them stay there.”

“Smart,” Billy comments, “Why the hell are you out here by yourself then?”

“Saw you coming. Snuck out the back.”

“Jesus, El, your dad’s gonna kill you.”

“I can look after myself,” She frowns, stubborn, and for a second she looks just like any other kid. Til her tattoo catches in the sunlight and he remembers why they’re here. That evil that has roots embedded deep in Hawkins, no matter how much they prod at it.

“You’re also a _kid_ ,” Billy frowns back at Steve, “Let’s get you inside with the other little shits while we wait for your sheriff's guys, okay?”

“Fine,” She tucks her hair behind her ear, “I’m sorry you had to see all of that, Steve.”

“It’s okay,” He replies, no clue what the hell else to say. “Robin at least hook you guys up with ice cream?”

“Yes,” Her face scrunches, “I liked strawberry.”

Billy’s face screws up over her head like it's the most disgusting thing he’s ever heard, and Steve _doesn’t_ smile because they’re in the midst of a dire situation and that would be inappropriate. He doesn’t.

“You had free reign of the whole place and you chose _strawberry_?” Billy whispers as he pushes open the one door to the mall that isn’t chained up, turns back to them to shake his head. “You gotta live a little, kid.”

“It's my favourite,” She doesn’t budge, squeezes in after Steve, “Those weren’t there in any of your day loops, were they, Steve?”

“No,” He steps forward past the both of them, grip tight on the bat out of instinct. “What the hell does that mean?”

The rest of the mall looks the exact same as is ingrained into his brain at this point, lights causing the place to look overly sterile even in the middle of the day. It hurts his head.

Things are different today, he’s already altered things. Made it so Billy and Hopper were aware and so Owens was aware _,_ he should’ve stopped the mind flayer before it even started. Those chains definitely weren’t there every other day. 

Something is different this time, compared to any other, and he knows this is the real deal. His final do-over.

* * *

The party is surprised that Billy is here. They don’t hide it well, Robin peering between them like she’s seeing something for the first time while the kids scream their oppositions. Steve doesn’t meet her eyes and she definitely notices which is _fine_.

Dustin helpfully brings up the Byers’ house incident as indefinite proof Billy _hates_ Steve, must do, and Billy barks a laugh around the mouthful of fudge he picked from the topping jars.

“You _just_ ate,” Steve ignores Dustin, knocks Billy’s ankle where he’s swinging his legs from atop the counter. 

He gives a lazy shrug, “Saving the world is exhausting work, I figure.”

Steve can’t help but laugh, roll his eyes. Billy smacks his lips together, chews open-mouthed and obnoxious.

“I can’t believe this is happening again,” Nancy cuts in from the table closest, “And I can’t believe you just roped him of all people into it without coming to any of us first, Steve. You know how dangerous it is for us to tell _anyone_.”

Steve frowns, “He’d already half-figured this shit out because some genius little shit had the grand idea of squeezing a demodog into Ms Byers’ fridge last year and leaving him there unconscious to find it, okay? And I trust him.”

“I knew something weird was going down the second I saw those fucking drawings strewn everywhere,” Billy cracks his knuckles, “I don’t know how half this town doesn’t already know. You don’t hide it well.”

Robin nods, breaks off a square of chocolate and hands it to Dustin wordlessly, “Took me, like, half an hour of watching Dustin squawk about Russian codes and monsters in tunnels on his walkie to put it together. The man’s not wrong. You guys are _glaringly_ obvious.”

“Thank you,” Billy near _smiles_ at her, mouth twitching. “So calm it, Wheeler. I’m not gonna say shit about your little goonies club you got going on. And I’m not here for _you_.”

He looks back to Steve, and he can’t help the jump in his pulse. Robin doesn’t hide her smile at Nancy’s nostrils flaring, and he notes Billy almost looks _content_ beside her.

It's weird to see the bunch of them together like this. A welcome change from black vining Billy’s skin and everyone fighting for their lives against a monster he created.

He leaves the three of them and Dustin to find El and the rest of the kids where they sit around the one working walkie just outside in the food court. El has a dishcloth tied around her face, black blood streaked along the back of her hand.

“How’s it coming along?”

“Hey, man,” Lucas is the only one to actually pay him any attention, spares him a lop-sided smile as he’s checking his slingshot. Must be the dozenth time he has. “Hopper broke into their safe. Or, I _think_ he did. El’s vision keeps going choppy.”

“Yeah, ‘cause she’s overworking herself,” Mike hisses, grip tight on the walkie. “The last we got he was _heading_ for the safe like ten minutes ago. And the walkie isn’t giving us anything but static.”

“Jesus,” He feels uneasy at that. He’d barely escaped himself all those times, purely down to chance. He wasn’t sure if Hopper could get that lucky. “El, you doing okay?”

There’s a slow nod of her head, “I can’t- see him. Just a man watching the gate. Yelling on a w... _walkie._ ”

He drags a chair up to her, lays a tentative hand on her shoulder. Max shoots a tired smile at him from her other side and he can’t help but mirror it.

“I kind of feel better about this whole thing now that he’s involved, too, I guess.” She nods over to where Billy and Robin are trading sprinkle jars, “I felt like complete shit keeping it from him.”

“You know, he didn’t even seem that surprised when I told him. ”

She goes quiet for a second, studies him. “What made you tell him?”

“Just felt like the right time, I guess.”

“It felt right,” She stares across at him, “That’s what you’re going with?”

He clears his throat, “Yep.”

Max tilts her head with a smirk, “Anybody ever tell you how much you _suck_ at lying?”

“Couple times,” She actively snorts at that, hidden by her hand, when static comes from the walkie and interrupts.

“Hopper? Jim Hopper?” Mike scrambles to grab it, gets nothing but a higher screech of noise, and it feels like an eternity before El is pulling the towel from her face with a gasp.

“They found him,” She’s wide-eyed as she whispers, flitting between each of them, “They know- know. About us. They’re coming.”

“Okay,” Steve’s heart is in his throat as he turns to Mike, “Keep trying to get to him. You just keep trying, okay?”

Max stands, “Steve, what do we do?”

“Uh,” He looks back to Scoops, to the rest of them watching El curiously, his head spinning. “El, you see how close they were?”

“In the elevator,” She says, all fear smoothed over by a calm that she should never have when facing this kind of shit. A calm that makes him feel ill. “A group of them. The rest are by the gate. Shooting.”

“At Hopper?”

“No. I think- I think something came through."

“Okay,” He nods, starts to walk back to Scoops, “All of you inside the shop. _Now_. And we wait it out ‘til Owens gets here.”

By some miracle, they seem to _listen_ and race ahead of him.

Joyce meets him at the entrance, cautious, and squeezes his shoulder, “I’m guessing you’re not bringing good news.”

“Okay, so, um. I guess the Russians found Hopper and - and a couple are on their way up here right now. The gate is still open. Something came through, I think. I don’t know, but - the kids, Ms Byers-”

Joyce’s face settles into an uncomfortable calm and she turns, moves to shuffle the kids behind the counter as he fucking panics, and he vaguely wishes he could hug her. Vows to a million times over when this ends. If it ends.

“Does this place have shutters?” Jonathan asks, gripping a pipe that Steve did _not_ see him with ten minutes ago.

“They’re flimsy, useless,” He says on autopilot, can’t breathe. He thought he’d fixed everything. Things were _different_ this time. It was so easy. Billy was supposed to be okay. But they were coming for them, they’d get him because he fucked up _again_ somehow and Billy’s going to die and-

There’s a hand at his forearm, pulling his wrist and him closer, right in front of everyone. 

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Billy murmurs just loud enough for Steve to hear, and it's not true, and the both of them know that. Know exactly what this means. They’re probably not getting out of this, and it's gonna be Billy’s blood staining the tiles. He won’t let that happen.

Steve nods, breathes in faint chlorine and cologne that still makes his nose hurt, and steps back. He’s still gonna fight those fuckers, he’s gonna try. He’ll do it.

He turns to face the rest of the party. “Jesus, okay. I think I have a plan. And that means all of you stay here, dim the lights, board up the doors. El, you come with me and you stay behind me, okay?”

“No way,” Billy’s grip tightens, his eyes alight, “You’re not pulling some hero bullshit, Steve. Not when we can fight those fuckers off together. Right here.”

“He’s right,” Nancy says like it pains her to admit it, steps forward with those sad doe eyes that he would’ve bowed to months ago. Now he just feels bad. “Either we all fight, or we hide. But it's not on you.”

He turns back to Billy, some raw, desperate plea twisting on his face. “I can’t just sit here, Billy. I can’t - not when we’re so _close_.”

“Nothing is gonna happen to me. To any of them,” Billy hisses quietly, gaze flitting to their audience who pretend not to listen and back to Steve. He takes Steve’s hand and squeezes hard. “Because we’re gonna stick the fuck together as the priss says and we get out alive. Okay?”

Steve swallows, nods, and Billy exhales. Runs a hand over his face, flushed cheeks and all.

“Good.”

Nancy saves him from saying something stupid, corners of her mouth twitching, “You know how to shoot?”

“Obviously.”

“Alright, then,” She tilts her head up, pulls a pistol from her dress pocket and hands it over. “There’s only ten, make them count.”

“So we’re doing this?” Dustin asks, half-crouched behind the counter.

“Y _ou’re_ not.Anyone without telekinetic powers, nail bats or guns stays here. Where it's safe. You get that, dickhead?”

Dustin nods, slides back down to sit by an amused Max. When he looks away, Jonathan, Joyce and Robin are already starting to stack up chairs by the windows.

He takes a shaky breath before he follows after El, Billy and Nancy. The shutters roll down behind him.

* * *

The soldiers go down almost straight away. It's almost funny just how easily they do. They clearly had no clue what was waiting for them other than a security breach, and for that, Steve is grateful. It's a relief when the last falls and El confirms no more have made it up so far.

Then the monsters come.

There are at least a dozen demodogs that clamber through the mall entrance and over the dead. There’s a shrill roar when they notice the four of them and Steve’s blood runs cold.

There’s a unanimous decision to go right at fending them off the second that El steps forward and rips two in half with her _mind._

The four of them fight together as a team, an extension of each other. The demodogs are diminishing. They’re down to a couple of the bastards left and he thinks, shit, maybe they’ve got this. That they’re almost free of this nightmare, finally.

“I’m out,” Nancy breathes out, he can hear the way her gun clicks, her breath hitching, “ _Fuck._ What the fuck do I-”

“Get back,” Billy grits out, a tremor ripping through him as he looks at Steve, eyes fevered. “Wheeler, get back to the shop.”

She nods resolutely, spins on her heel and starts running. Her heels click on the tiles and he hears a muffled curse. A wretched growl. One of them is stalking after Nancy.

It happens like this. 

El’s preoccupied with two of the bastards by the doorway, wrapping metal chains around their squirming bodies with her mind as they swipe at her. Steve’s got one of them caught on his bat, flesh lodged in the nails, and Billy-

Billy’s heading toward her.

Billy’s shooting the last of his bullets into the thing before he’s throwing the pistol at its side, Steve knows it's empty, and Billy’s defenceless.

Billy’s going to die. 

Billy’s going to go out protecting them.

Billy’s going to sacrifice himself.

And Steve’s not got many hands left to deal.

It's so fucking obvious to him once he realises what has to happen, once the thing turns around and howls in Billy’s direction, what he has to do. What he always should’ve.

He’s never been so sure of anything when he yanks his bat out of the guts of the one demodog and into another of the fuckers, sends it flying at the one stepping toward Billy.

“Hey!” He screams, screams until he’s hoarse, until the bastard is growling that inhumane noise again. It doesn’t turn toward him, too preoccupied with the blood that falls thick in Billy’s brow, and he _knows_ what this is.

Billy’s just watching him, he’s about to do something, something self-sacrificing and plain fucking dumb and. 

Bat raised, Steve races to step in front of him. 

It won’t matter, he knows the card he’s about to play. And he’s ready, so fucking ready, so long as Billy gets out of this. 

He gets one good swipe in with the bat, it's just a little too slow on the uptake. It's not enough, he knows it's not enough. It doesn’t matter, he thinks, as the wind’s knocked out of him. 

There’s a weird sense of calm when the claws pierce his shoulder. Pierce his chest. He wishes he’d been quicker, maybe if he’d realised weeks ago just what Billy truly meant to him. The lengths he’d go to.

There’s a single puncture with those rows of teeth before the thing is yanked off of him.

El’s crying, he thinks, both of her hands outstretched and blood down to her chin as she rips the rest of them in two.

Billy clambers toward him, and his face is. He’s pressing his hands to wounds, they’re smeared with Steve’s blood, and Billy’s screaming over his shoulder. For help, he’s pretty sure, but all he sees are faces blurred with shock.

“You’re so fucking - you’re so _stupid_ ,” Billy spits, chokes on something, and he’s still pressing down. He’s taking off his jacket and covering Steve and that gets tainted too. He tries to speak, tries to explain, he did this for _him._ “Don’t say anything, just. Don’t go. Don't leave me, Steve.”

“Sorry,” Steve’s voice is hoarse as he clambers to get a hold of Billy, to palm his cheek. Billy squeezes his eyes shut, leans into his touch as his lips tremble. 

He’s sick with it - this overwhelming guilt. It’s worth it. The pain, the breaths that come more shallow than each before, _all_ of it. To see Billy breathing, still, to see him full of life. 

“You just fucking hang on and you keep looking at me. That’s all - just me. You’re gonna be okay and we’re gonna. We’re gonna leave this place and you’re gonna be fine because you can’t just- you can’t-”

“Billy,” Steve chokes on his name, doesn’t have to guess what the copper lining his lips is made up of, and Billy’s swallow says it all. 

There’s a deep rumble from far off, and he’s not sure what it is, but it's so loud and he just wants to rest. Can’t bear to take his eyes from Billy, though. Fights to keep them open, even as Billy turns his face away and wipes at his cheeks.

Red and blue flashes behind his eyelids and he knows that it's over. 

* * *

Plain, white walls stare at him when he wakes up. So bright and ugly despite the several windows that he has to squeeze his eyes shut again.

So.

Fluorescent lights are a pain in the ass in any setting. Good to know.

His head lolls to the side, to get those lights out of his line of sight because they _hurt_.

He must make some kind of noise, a smack of his lips or crease the sheet that’s scratching his skin because there’s a noise from the end of the bed. A cry, maybe.

“Holy shit,” He hears, chapped lips breaking in a silent laugh because it's. Of course, it's Robin. It pulls on his stomach, the tube in his hand, which. _Holy fuck._

“Yeah, Jesus, stay still,” She hisses even as she smiles, helping him sit back. It blocks the light and he can actually focus on her. Her hair’s cropped shorter, to her jaw. 

“What- your hair,” He manages and flicks his fingers to the general area of his shoulder, throat scratching, and she curses again.

She leaves him for the table beside the bed for a second, bringing a straw to his lips. The stale, lukewarm water is probably the best fucking thing he’s ever tasted. 

“Your hair,” He coughs, licks his lips and finds them cracked, “It's shorter.”

“Yeah,” She says, no kind of explanation on offer. She sits in the chair that’s pulled up to his bed. There’s a leather jacket strewn across it that he _knows_ isn’t Robin’s. She frowns down at her hands. “I sent him off to get some food. He hasn’t… he hasn’t moved from that chair.”

“Oh,” He feels sick at the thought. “How long, um. How long have I been here?”

“Couple of days. The damage was…” She blows out a breath, “They didn’t know if you’d make it, for a while. There was so much blood lost, those things got you real good. They had to induce you ‘cause, uh. ‘Cause of the shock.”

“Okay,” He swallows. Isn’t sure how to process this, any of it. He really thought he was a goner. He was fine with it. 

“Yeah,” She looks away again. It's silent, save for the machine occasionally beeping from his other side that he refuses to look at. Can’t. 

“Have my parents…” He can’t even finish that sentence.

“No,” She frowns, “Your dad called Hopper from Chicago to ask if you’d been involved in the _fire_ at Starcourt. He told him yes, that you were stable and the government was paying for your treatment and more. Apparently, he was happy enough with that because he hung up, the piece of shit.”

“Right,” He nods, his eyes burning. He swallows, can’t help the bitter laugh, “You think he’ll be wishing I’d croaked it when he finds out I totalled his chevy, too?”

“Shit, Steve,” She snorts a laugh, watches him with shining eyes. “Hargrove nearly imploded when Hopper told us what your dad said. Which, uh, speaking of. When did _that_ happen?”

“Long story,” He takes another drink, “When’d you figure it out?”

“The way he looked at you when you were too busy freaking out to notice. I’ve never seen anybody look so gone for someone else like that, you know? He wouldn’t let go of you when Owens turned up. He made them take him with you.”

Steve’s cheeks heat, “He did?”

She rolls her eyes with a laugh, “Yeah, Steve, he did _._ He wouldn’t listen to any of us. Not me, not Hopper. Fucking punched him for trying to pull him away, actually.”

He doesn’t know what to do with that. 

“He told me everything last night,” Robin’s hand is warm when she takes his in hers, “What you did for him. I wish you’d told me, maybe I could’ve helped. Maybe we could’ve come up with an actual, functioning plan that didn’t involve the both of you sacrificing yourselves like the assholes that you are.”

“I should’ve,” He nods, “I wish I had. But it's done, and he’s okay and it was all worth it.”

“Christ, you're an idiot,” She blinks, “He’s so much different than I thought he would be. Just as melodramatic as you, staring off into the sunset, falling asleep next to your bed. It's disgusting, really.”

“Shut up,” He flushes, doesn’t quite have the strength to thwack her with a scratchy pillow as he wants to. He settles on settling her with a glare that she grins at.

She squeezes his hand once before letting go, “I’m really glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah. Yeah, me too.”

He smiles across at her, watches her wipe away tears she’d insist never fell, and he thinks she’s the one good thing that came out of that fucking mall.

She’s about to say something else, her brows creased together when the door creaks open.

“I ate your cake on the way here,” Comes a rasp of a voice, and a head of flat, mussed curls that pokes through.

“Your hair looks like shit,” Steve coughs out, real fucking smooth of him, and Billy’s head snaps up.

“Oh,” He says, drops a couple foam trays onto the table by Robin, and his face breaks into a grin. He hovers at Robin’s side, tongue between his teeth. “You, uh. You okay?”

Steve can’t help but snort, no matter how it pulls on what must be half a dozen stitches and nods. Twitches to reach out, to hold. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. Get over here.”

Robin rolls her eyes, stands with a stretch, and dips out of the room.

“Hey,” Billy clambers to sit at the side of the bed, brings his palm to Steve’s cheek. The action makes him shudder, thinks of the reverse happening only days ago, and he reaches out to grip Billy’s wrist. 

“Hi,” Steve grins, a little breathless and in love, “You gonna kiss me or what?”

“Yeah, baby,” Billy’s eyes crease into lines of crescent moons that ring true his lack of sleep and he dips his face to nose at Steve’s other cheek. Presses his lips there, to the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, I am.”

He’s expecting something rushed, frantic, maybe. A buildup of all the emotions he’s sure Billy must be battling with. A clash of teeth, Billy’s hand in his hair and tugging.

No, it's nothing like that at all.

He feels him smile against his mouth before Steve’s kissing it away. He thumbs Steve’s cheek and moves to kiss him slow. 

Billy’s tongue teeters on his bottom lip, gentle and hesitant, and Steve doesn’t have to think about it when he opens for him. Swallows the soft noise Billy makes and tightens his grip on his wrist. Tugs it closer and gets a hand splayed over his chest. Inches above the bandages.

A thumb drags along his collarbone and he pulls away, lightheaded. His stomach grumbles.

Billy grins against his jaw, laughs softly in his ear.

“You want Robin’s cake? Something tells me she’s not coming back.”

“Obviously,” He smiles, can’t stop smiling, “I thought you said you ate it?”

Billy’s nose wrinkles, “Nah, just mine. It's just fun to fuck with her.”

“What a _delinquent_ you are.”

They’re close enough that he can hear the way Billy breathes out a laugh, and it makes his heart pound just a little.

Billy doesn’t answer, leans over him to grab the takeout trays and settles them on the blanket between Steve’s lap and his own. 

They don’t speak as they eat, Steve in small bites because he knows he won’t be able to eat much at all and Billy open-mouthed. It's disgusting. 

“You know,” Billy licks his lips for the last of the crumbs, “That lab guy of Hopper’s isn’t half bad.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm,” Billy watches him for a second, “He thanked us all. Said what a good job we’d done, how he wished we could be acknowledged properly in the news. Not that I give a shit about that but, uh, the guy handed me a pretty big wad of Franklins. Said it was yours.”

“He... he did? Why?”

“Something to do with saving this entire shithole from those fuckers, probably,” Billy bites at his cheek, “I haven’t touched mine.”

Steve nods, “Everybody get some?”

“Yep.”

“Huh,” He looks to the window outside, the sun rising, and breathes out. “You know a ticket to LA is about two and a half of them? Give or take a note.”

Billy swallows, smiles something unsure, “Leaves an awful lot of the fuckers left, doesn’t it? What’s a guy meant to do with that many?”

Steve can’t help the grin, bites into his lip when Billy’s own tug in the corners, “Guess you’ll have to see for yourself.”

Billy sits back with a laugh, kicks his legs up on the bed and against Steve’s. “Guess I will.”

* * *

Turns out, the ocean is pretty nice on his skin. 

The air, too. 

It's cleaner, he can taste the salt on his tongue hours after leaving it. Feels hot sand everywhere even after he pats himself down. 

The windows are open as he steps in, the sea air following him inside with the slight breeze.

He toes off his sandals, sandals that Billy hates because they’re bright yellow and decorated in rhinestones. They cost him a dollar. Worth every cent, he thinks, as Billy glares at them across the island.

“I make your ass breakfast,” Billy frowns, “And you thank me by dragging those things inside?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Steve squints, steps out of the open hallway and into the kitchen. The clock reads 8am. He picks up the sandwich and takes a bite, mouth open, and Billy dips his head in a laugh. “Isn’t the term _brunch_ out here?”

“It's not catching on, no matter how many times you say it, you fucking hippie,” Billy takes a bite of his own. Is quiet for a moment. “How come you were out so early?”

“Nightmare,” He answers honestly, presses a hand to one of the few scars that’d remained on his torso. They hurt, sometimes, even now. They and the terrors rattling around his head are a reminder that things aren’t perfect. That there’s always something out there, they’re never going to be fully recovered from Hawkins.

But he’s free. Free as he can be. With the man he loves and their ugly little house by the beach that most of their money _combined_ had gone towards and the ocean at their back. 

Billy doesn’t speak, doesn’t have to, catches his hand in his own and squeezes. Presses a kiss to his wrist.

They eat at the island together, Cheers rerun drifting down the hall from the living room and the tide from the window. 

It's all he needs.

**Author's Note:**

> aaaaaand then they surf or something and make out under the pier.
> 
> obviously robin and the kids come to visit for the summer and everybody is happy and the mindflayer can SUCK it.
> 
> find me on tumblr @ valyriaas!


End file.
